Oh, the 90s, you really were the devil's playground, filled with so many treasures like chokers and
Paula Poundstone suits, and then also bringing the pain with some truly awful trash. I feel like this era of life has just recently exited the "too soon" category, and I'm now free to trash talk at will. With that in mind, I present to you the WORST crap that the 90s ever served up.
#1 -- Running Out of Free AOL Hours
I don't know what kind of bullsh*t this picture is talking about, but in my day (yes, I'm one of those people now), AOL's stingy ass only shelled out ten free hours a month. Then you then spent twice as many hours dialing up to get online, followed by yelling at your mom when she picked up the phone to call her friend Mary and ruining your teen chat room game. And just when you were REALLY getting into talking to that boy from Tacoma, Washington about his favorite show on TGIF, the AOL hours rug got pulled out right from under your a-hole and your dumb ten hours were up. Your days were then filled with checking the mail on a pretty constant basis, praying to Andrew Keegan that more hours were on their way. (P.S. This is a 100% factual account of my life.)
Level of Terrible-ness: Not being able to get your Capri-Sun straw in the hole on the first time and bending the pointy part on the end, rendering it useless.
#2 -- 3D Magic Eye Posters
These friggin' things, man. They were everywhere you looked, from your Language Arts teacher's desk next to the "Hang in There" kitten poster, to your grandparents' living room wall. My grandparents had one of the Statue of Liberty. They weren't recent immigrants, thankful to be under the watchful eye of Lady Liberty, or anything, they were just from Alabama.
The worst thing about the Magic Eye posters were you had to half-cross your eyes to even catch a glimpse of whatever bullsh*t thing that was supposed to pop out, pretty much guaranteeing strained eyes and an instant headache. Plus, there was always that nagging little voice in your head saying, "You know that your eyes might get stuck that way." If I acquired permanent eyeball damage from looking at an effing 3D poster when I was 11, I would rage against this world.
Level of Terrible-ness: Finishing a Mad Libs book without ever writing "penis."
#3 -- Crystal Pepsi
Just kidding! That sh*t was the truth.
Level of Terrible-ness: The Spice Girls movie.
#4 -- Eyebrow Shenanigans
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| cuts on cuts on cuts |
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| where'd your brows go, drew? |
This decade was straight AWFUL on eyebrows. We were coming off of a decade where we laid our eyes upon beautiful brows like the ones that graced Brooke Shield's mug, and plunged right into the depths of fiery eyebrow hell. Trust, hell would be filled with sh*tty eyebrows. The 90s were chock full o' nuts doing dumb crap to their brows, from partially shaving them to tweezing them into shapes much, much smaller than a wee newborn's eyebrow. Nope.
Level of Terrible-ness: Umbro butt.
#5 -- The Macarena
Do I even need to say anything about this travesty of both music and loosely-termed "dance?" Between The Macarena and anything that came out of
Lou Bega's mouth, this time period in pop music was really a rude ass assault on everyone's ear holes. Seeing the general public from toddlers to walker-bound elderly doing this damn dance for years on years is something that can't be unseen. I'm still not over it.
Level of Terrible-ness: My mom singing along to Boyz II Men's hit song "I'll Make Love to You," which was one of the three cassette tapes that she owned, and forcing those awkward ass lyrics upon my pre-teen ears on every damn car trip to the grocery store.
#6 -- Pre-Flat Iron Hair Styling
Hair in the 90s was really pretty bad. Having BANGS before the new millennium was damn near impossible. My bangs would just curl up after three and a half minutes, and you could just call that sh*t a day. The other option was to curl your horrid bangs with a big curling iron, then spray the hell out of them with White Rain hairspray, leaving you with what appeared to be a
Little Debbie Swiss Roll glued to your forehead. HOW DID WE LIVE BACK THEN?
Level of Terrible-ness: I mean, look at my ass. It's all a big ol' piece of sh*t, so take your pick.
Thank you, decade of the 90s, for giving me the fortitude to make it through the tough times. I'll never forget you, mostly because you scarred me for life.
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